The Spanking Writers

The bookshop chain Waterstones has launched a contest called “What’s your story?” It’s essentially a story competition, in which you write your story on the back of a card you pick up in any shop.

Like so:

I’m enormously tempted to launch my own competition, for those who are tempted to subvert a Waterstones story card. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can afford the subsequent lawsuit…

The girls walking through the town centre in front of me were weighed down with textbooks. A Level students, I guessed, exams looming, in the midst of a mutually-supportive “shall we go and revise together in the coffee shop” trip.Only when they sat down, one would turn to the other: “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You remember… when you got the cane last term. What – what happened? How does he do it? Was it really awful?”

Her best friend would blush, then go pale, glancing round to make sure that none of the other customers had heard. With tears welling up: “I… I’d rather not talk about it.”

“It’s just that…” She gulped: “The Headmaster’s secretary caught me as I was leaving school on Friday afternoon, and told me to report to him after assembly on Monday morning. And I’m really worried that he’s found out that I forged my sicknote when I stayed at home on Wednesday…”

There are some dreams that are just kinky enough to provide nice frisson, but are otherwise completely nuts.I dreamt I was a student in Hogwards, and Lord Voldemort was in charge. There was plenty of punishment around, including caning for the most serious misbehaviour.

In this dream, I was my kinky self. I wanted to get caned.

There was, however, one catch: when you were caught at a caning offence for the second time, you were sent straight to Voldemort, and probably got killed.

Er… not hot. I’d like to lodge a complaint with the ministry of kinky dreams.

We must be corrupting Smudge, who many of you will know from her regular and lovely comments, because she and I were struck by the same startle last Friday.

I’d been heading to work when I found myself driving behind a truck with the registration number “FL06 ABC”. (Well, the final three letters weren’t ‘ABC’, before you track down the driver – but it was the thought of the flogging that caught my eye).

I’d been wondering all day where I could buy the registration “FL06 HER” for my car. And then Smudge emails me:

“I was in a car park and there was this little car parked opposite me. And its license plate’s last 3 letters were ‘oww’. And my first thought, when I realised that? ‘The driver of that car got spanked.’”

Smudge, my dear, Haron and I are duly ashamed for corrupting you. Honestly… (Haron, stop that hysterical laughter right now).

I’m speaking at a conference in Palm Springs next week*, and (as often happens before I have a major presentation to give) I find myself rewriting my speech in my sleep. New content comes and goes; pictures of the audience flash into life; I wake up and scribble down any bright ideas.

See, it’s not just kinky stuff that fills my dreams. But last night the two merged. It was no longer a conference, but a school trip, and I was the master in charge. The group was sitting round a common room in the hostel we’d rented. (I imagine days spent walking up mountains in bracing fresh air, muddy boots left in the porch, steaming mugs of tea on our return). They were all good girls – the elite of the sixth-form; good friends.

Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. As an argument developed, one of the girls (my favourite, as it happened) raised not only her voice but her hand, slapping her adversary.

I intervened immediately, of course, before things got out of hand. She was sent from the room to wait for me outside my room; the remaining girls were lectured as to how disappointed I was in them. I made them tidy the room, wash up their mugs, and sent them early to bed.

She’d been waiting a fair while as a result before I made it to my room: her face was already tear-stained. I took her inside: her apologies were so heartfelt that scolding was barely necessary. But “you understand that I cannot let this go unpunished” made her nod, and “you realise how fighting would be dealt with were we at school” led to a murmured “I’d be caned, sir.”

“Would you rather I informed your Housemaster on our return, or dealt with this now?”

A pause, plucking up the courage. “Now, please, sir.”

No canes here, on a school trip. I pulled up an armchair, and instructed her to lower her jeans and knickers to her ankles, and bend over my knees. The spanking was hard – very hard: if a girl was to take a caning-equivalent, then each smack had to count. She wriggled, cried, subsided. Stood afterwards, as I held her and told her that it was all over and there was nothing to worry about.

* If you happen to live in Palm Springs, or San Francisco where I’m spending a few days afterwards, and fancy some kinky company, I’d love to meet you!

I’ve broken three canes during scenes in recent months. The girls concerned will no doubt be wincing as they read. (Or not, as the case may be: they’ll probably have big smiles on their faces).

I blame faulty manufacture, of course. I’d never whack a girl so hard as to break the cane across her deliberately…

… honest…

Although it presents me with a dilemma which I am unable to solve to my satisfaction. A Headmaster is caning a girl; she’s committed a particularly grave breach of school rules, and her attitude has been entirely unrepentant. Only the hardest six, of the very very best, could be appropriate.

He makes her count. One, two, three… and on the fourth stroke the cane breaks. He leaves her in position while he fetches a new cane from his cupboard. With the next stroke, she counts “five”.

Does he:

a) continue, applying the sixth and sending her on her way

b) correct her: “the previous whack didn’t count as the cane broke: that was only the fourth proper stroke.”

I’ve been very virtuous these past few days. See, the kind folks for whom I’m running a project at the moment will quite happily lay on a taxi from my hotel to their offices and back each day. Total cost to them – around £30.Or, as the weather’s nice and I’m so considerate, I could jump on the local bus for 90p each way – and take a short stroll in the lovely sunshine.

This morning, we were joined en route by a group of schoolgirls, all smartly-dressed in neat blazers. They discussed the revision they’d done over the weekend – good girls, clearly.

Good, that is, save one of their number. For she, dear readers, took out her mobile phone (banned on school premises), uttered an astonishingly rude word to the person she called (swearing: banned), and managed to combine the immaculate uniform with several items of jewellery (banned) and make-up (banned).

One can picture her face at the start of her first lesson of the day, when she spotted that the gentleman who’d sat next to her on the bus was their new supply teacher*. He’d have to send her out of his lesson to report to her Housemaster’s study, naturally, with a carefully-written note. After all, new masters need to establish their authority, and her tearful look as she winced her way into her desk on her return from her caning would demonstrate his strict approach most clearly.

* No, I was going to an office. I doubt they’d have me as a schoolmaster.

On a tube from Heathrow into central London recently, Haron and I caught each other observing the young woman sitting opposite. She’d clearly just arrived in the country, with two huge suitcases that suggested that she was here to work or study for some time.The girl picked up a copy of Metro, the free newspaper, discarded by a previous passenger. We watched as she studied the strange, unfamiliar place names – for now just words, abstract concepts – as if searching for clues to the lifeblood of her new home. Which places would become real, three-dimensional for her; which would remain foreign and unexplored? Which marked the future-familiar locations where she would work, play, love, cry?

And then she laid it down, pulled a map from her pocket and started to gather her things together. Her uncle would be waiting for her – pleased to see her, no doubt, eager for news from home. She’d be staying with him: her father had emphasised how lucky she was.

Only… only daddy had said something else as he’d kissed her goodbye. About how he’d been talking to her uncle about her behaviour in London. How he’d explained how she was expected to uphold the highest standards at all times. About how transgressions were punished at home….

…about how he’d given her uncle his full permission to punish her as he felt fit. About how her uncle had assured him that his own daughters had been brought up ‘traditionally’, and how he hoped not to have to use the cane during her stay, but would do so firmly and without hesitation if her conduct caused it to be strictly necessary…

It was only four swats into her punishment, and yet he was ordering her to stand. Surely he couldn’t have finished already? Not that it didn’t hurt: oh goodness, how it hurt. But when they’d discussed it earlier, in his office, she’d somehow imagined the punishment lasting longer.

She staggered upright, brushing down her oh-too-short nightdress before her hands reached back to rub, to cradle, to soothe her backside. Her knickers were on her desk: would he let her put them back on now?

He stood too, looming over her. “Let’s get the nudity thing dealt with, shall we?”

“Sir?”

“Did I tell you that I would punish you on the bare?”

Reluctantly: “Yes, professor.”

“And did you agree to that condition?”

Blushing, she confirmed her consent. He’d been very clear: when he arrived at her dorm room, she would be wearing her nightie. And only her nightie. He’d already informed her that the knickers would prove to be a costly mistake.

“And yet you persist in trying to cover yourself at every opportunity.”

“It’s embarrassing, sir.”

“Being punished isn’t meant to be anything but embarrassing, Elisabeth. And you agreed, did you not, that you wanted me to punish you like this? To spank you.”

Blushing again: “I did, sir.”

“So why is it that every time I try to bring down my hand, I find you reaching back to pull down your nightie?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I won’t do it again.”

“Indeed not.” He walked around her. “I’m not used to my students disobeying me. But this particular matter should be remarkably easy to stop.”

“Sir?”

“Take off your nightdress…”

–

I can rather guess where this might go next, but sadly that was as far as my dream went last night. Now, I need to find a girl to spank. And to strip, for that matter.

I’ve been reading about The Red Lodge, Britain’s first reformatory for girls.The enlightened founder believed that the girls could be educated without regular recourse to corporal punishment. But I can imagine one resident pushing her luck too far: absconding for a third time, perhaps, having been given a very clear final warning.

She would be brought before the Governors. That, in itself, would cause her to quake: any bravado would have been long abandoned by the time she was led into the room. They would ask for an explanation; she would have none. They would warn her of the dire fate that might befall a homeless girl wandering the streets of Victorian Bristol. They would ask whether she recalled her previous warning:

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we cannot allow this to go unpunished.” They would confer amongst themselves, before the Chairman of the Governors turned back to her. “We intend to make an example of you, girl. We cannot allow the staff her to be undermined, and you were given very clear warnings.”

“Please, sir. Have mercy…”

“You are to be birched at nine prompt tomorrow morning.” The Chairman would turn to the warden: “Please make sure the girl is washed and put into a clean dress tomorrow morning, and bring her to the Oak Room at five to nine. Now take her away…”

–
A small group would gather in the Oak Room the following morning: the Chairman, with birch rods in hand. A governor or two. The warden of the reformatory. And the girl.

She’d be ordered to remove her dress, before being tied over the end of a long oak table. The Chairman would stand back: “I think we should wait until nine, gentlemen.” And so they’d pause, listening for the bells of the neighbouring church. Counting each of the nine peals. Knowing that the other girls in the reformatory would also be counting, would also be holding their breath.

Pausing, once silence reigned.

And then beginning her thrashing: hard, measured, teaching a lesson that even the most tolerant of reformatories knows how to punish when punishment is due.